


Secret Worlds

by Ayulsa (execharmonious)



Category: Loveless
Genre: Gen, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-18
Updated: 2010-02-18
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/execharmonious/pseuds/Ayulsa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expansion on what Ritsuka might have really been thinking during the first page of the manga. If someone came to you telling their true name, what would you believe?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secret Worlds

"I'll tell you my true name. I'll tell only you."

Seimei's gaze was drowsy-blurred, the kind of dull warm langorous look that could mask any emotion. Ritsuka couldn't read the intent behind those words, though he searched and searched.

_True name?_ It wasn't that he didn't like those sorts of games himself, but even if Seimei still played at that stuff, why would he share it with him? That was an embarrassing sort of thing to admit, wasn't it? That the worlds in your head, the stories you spun for your private imagination, meant so much to you that you'd define yourself by them?

Embarrassing. The sort of secret never shared, except in direst need. Even Seimei, his brother, closer than anyone, didn't share his secrets casually. He'd smile and ruffle the hair between Ritsuka's ears, say, "Tell you someday, Ritsuka," or "That's not important, Ritsuka." He didn't just - say - these things.

Therefore, this was something precious. Therefore, this was something real.

Ritsuka breathed in, fascinated, as if he could swallow, taste the atmosphere that surrounded this moment; his ears perked and painfully alert, as if he could strain the truth out of the air, the concealing dark echoes of those transgressive words.

If Seimei was willing to speak of this with such boldness-- such _solemnity_, the way he'd have said _Ritsuka, I have to go away for a long time_\-- then it must be real. Must be. It didn't sound real, sounded like some sort of fairytale, but the strangeness of that mixed with sudden surety only made his heart ache all the more, ignited again his fading hopes that all the worlds in his head could be true.

How could he feel so old and so young at once? Young, as if he was believing these things again for the first time. Old, as if finally, now, he was being initiated into the wonders he'd always secretly dreamed existed.

"Beloved."

_Beloved._ The word was foreign and sweet from Seimei's tongue, _be-ra-be-do_. It meant nothing he knew, yet it carried with it a heavy cadence, a promise of meaning.

"It means 'adored one'," said Seimei, and Ritsuka committed the meaning and the syllables to memory. _Be-ra-be-do_, Beloved. He'd never forget.

He'd already decided that much, even before Seimei asked. Without him quite understanding what or why, something had passed between them just now. Moments like this were too sacred to lose hold of, too defining to let slip through your grasp.

_Beloved._

Adored one.

Seimei had such strange ways. Or at least, that was what most adults would have said. But Seimei wasn't an adult, nor quite a child, but something else, brother, adored one, with his ears and tail and the smooth knowing words that fell from his lips and the way things felt so warm and close after Seimei shared with him, _Seimei, Beloved,_ and he never wanted these ways with their childlike boldness and grown-up intensity to end.

He found the name engulfing him like a spell, _Seimei, Beloved, Seimei,_ and he closed his eyes to its repetitive chant, wrapped in Beloved's arms.


End file.
